How to create an effective sharing call-to-action
Last week, I had the pleasure of hearing Rand Fishkin’s excellent talk about how SEO is becoming increasingly meritocratic, and search engines are relying less on linkbacks and keyword density, and more on measurable indicators of influence to determine page rankings. Now personally, I hate - but respect - SEO (don’t even get me started), and he still managed to make it a fascinating and digestible session, but one of the biggest takeaways I got from it was the importance of social sharing on the ranking of your content.
SEO Tactics to Love vs. Leave from Rand Fishkin
As Rand capably pointed out in the slide above, influencers on the web have gone from being a minority to the majority over the last 5-7 years - 72% of us now have the ability to amplify the reach of content we deem worthy. The major social networks all recognize this, hence they offer embeddable sharing buttons to add to your site - but they’re far from in a standardized format, making them difficult to cleanly integrate into your site, if you’re not savvy with code.
This has important implications for your sharing buttons - the easier you make it to share your content, the greater potential reach and influence it can have, and therefore the better it can rank in the search results.
This post will share some pointers to help you reduce sharing friction for your visitors, and maximize the shares you’re getting for your content.
Placement: Location, Location, Location
Where your social sharing bar is located relative to your content is a key decision. Many blogs simply go overboard and stick them everywhere - sidebar, website header, footer, under the title, etc. This can a) make your blog look like a unicorn lost its lunch on the page (“woooow, look at all the pretty colors!”), and b) distract your readers from the content.
So where should you put your sharing bar? Luckily the answer lies with science! Eye-tracking studies performed by usability expert Jakob Nielsen have shown that people tend to focus their attention in an ‘F’-shaped pattern when reading longform content like blog posts
So if the next action you want your readers to take after finishing is to share your content, take advantage of this natural behavior by placing sharing buttons horizontally above the content, and vertically down the left side.
BUT WAIT! That’s not the whole story: while the top and left side may get the lion’s share of readers’ attention, it’s when coming to the end of a post that your readers are most likely to share, which makes contextual sense - after all, you don’t typically order dessert until after the entrée, right? Neil Patel’s informative post on social media mistakes would appear to validate this (while invalidating the top-of-post placement).
Moral: test the placement of your social media buttons, and make a conscious decision as to where they live, so you can work out what’s best for your readers.
Visibility: Now you see me...
Make sure your social sharing buttons are clearly visible. Sounds like a no-brainer right? Maybe so, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to miss the call-to-action to share, when there are buttons crammed into all available whitespace on the page. Don’t overdo it, or your readers will experience something akin to “banner blindness”, where the thing you want them to click on is staring them in the face, and they miss it.
Languages: Cómo se dice “Tweet This”?
Consider the primary language of your readers - are you making it clear what they’ll be doing when they click your sharing buttons?
Even when you’re speaking the same language, you can generate more sharing engagement by putting the shares in context - presenting them as “Votes” or “Props” can give them more value in your readers’ eyes.
(Quick plug: Flare Pro users can customize the action label of their sharing buttons. You should learn more about all the features)
Button Selection: You chose…wisely...
Don’t try to cover every possible network under the sun, you’ll simply overwhelm your visitors, thanks to the Paradox of Choice - we instinctively freeze up when presented with an array of choices that have little to differentiate them from one another.
Instead, select no more than a handful of buttons to show, and aim to strike the right balance between networks on which you have an active presence, and the ones that are most popular with your readers. In this way:
you’re more efficiently able to continue engaging with those folks who shared your content, and
consolidating the sharing action to show higher counts across fewer networks gives you credible social proof, which validates your content in the eyes of new visitors
Speaking of which…
Social Proof: look like one of the popular kids
Social proof comes in many forms, but it’s all geared towards leveraging our inherent tendency to want to join the crowd. In terms of your social sharing bar, showing your readers that your post is blowing up on Facebook and Twitter makes them more inclined to add to the buzz by sharing it there also. Conversely, showing inactivity makes it less likely that your readers will want to engage, so try not to show a raft of zeroes next to your content, if possible.
The Call-to-Action: Ask for shares!
Finally, make sure to ask for a share! Simply showing the buttons and expecting your readers to know what to do is making a big assumption. Helpfully guide them to the next step, by specifically calling it out.
In Summary
Search engines are using the amount of social sharing around a piece of content as an important indicator of its influence and usefulness, which in turn decides its place in the search results - so you want to remove as many obstacles preventing your visitors from sharing as possible. Not all of the tips above will be 100% applicable to your website, but by keeping them in mind when adding a social sharing bar, you can set yourself up for success!